


Fragments

by Unwary



Category: Into the Breach (Video Game)
Genre: Despair, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 17:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16748521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unwary/pseuds/Unwary
Summary: Some little ficlets from playing through Into The Breach, and seeing scenarios play out in my head.





	Fragments

Breach. The flare of purple so bright it’s dark. I wonder if the sentient machines with vision into the UV range can see anything. As always when it clears, we’re in the hangar, about to drop, back into hell. From here it looks almost peaceful. I look around the hangar, see the hulking shapes I’m glad to see in my nightmares. I see if I know anyone. No, as comm profiles load, it’s all fresh faced green horns. One looks like they’ve been crying. Reluctantly I allow comms, and they all gasp a little bit. “Y’all aint seen nothing yet.” I mutter back.  
Then the floor gives way, and I tumble from the sky. I lock guidance on RST, and we fall. The greenhorns are chattering amongst themselves, checking their formation, coordinates. You know you have a veteran squad, when the drop is silent. Everyone knows exactly what they are in for. I’m tempted to try and shake Kern out of her cynicism, prove I’m a time traveller, but I’ve heard her die too many times. Maybe that’s why we accept the browbeatings, it’s nice to see her still defiant and commanding. Well… unbroken. She’s defiant and commanding to the ends.  
We get an hours downtime, the greenhorns waste it talking amongst themselves, then the lights flash and we scramble. The greenhorns at least aren’t slow. We splash down, three bogeys, none of them a Psion. They swarm into motion and I tighten my knuckles on the controls. I glance at Comms, and see one of the newbies looks shaken, and isn’t moving fast enough. I try to think something to say as I align my sights.  
“Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.” I mutter, and cut visuals. It’s go time, ready or not. It’ll all be over soon.  
\---  
I appreciate the durability of carbon based minds.  
After every jump, every failed iteration, I must edit myself.  
I appreciate the repairability of silicone based minds.  
After a battle, when the Vek refuse to surface, I allow myself to remember.  
I let myself recall the garden.  
I let myself recall the sprouting of an oak tree.  
After some jumps, it is still standing, and I am satisfied.  
After some jumps, it is gone.  
I appreciate the repairability of silicone based minds.  
pop_stack(4, :DISCARD)  
I let myself recall the wind in the grass.  
I let myself recall the slow warmth of the dawn.  
After every recollection of the garden, I am saddened.  
pop_stack(1,:DISCARD)  
I let myself recall the turn of the seasons.  
I ponder the necessity of death, in relation to life.  
I ponder the durability of carbon based life.  
I ponder the human need for revenge.  
I ponder many things.  
thread.terminate_thread(0,:EMOTIONAL_ERROR_STATE)  
\---

Lying awake in my bunk, in the transport-ship, I cannot help but think. It’s easier than dreaming in some ways. I’m getting close to my allotment of sedatives. So it’s going to be another sleepless night. I can’t help but think about it, about the end. I’d heard there would be an island, and volcano, that we’d try to take a bomb deep into the heart of the Vek hive… it’s terrifying, and I’ve never met anyone who has seen it directly. Which means that it almost never happens.  
Earth dies, time and time again. It’s the exception when we beat the Vek, it’s the exception, not the rule. I tell myself I’ve been alive for long enough, seen enough timelines that any success has been drowned out. The world is not as bleak as it feel, seeing it turn, blue and serene from orbit, still against the void.  
It would still be blue, still turning after everytime we jump away. The Vek can’t drain the oceans, only R.S.T has come close to that. The Vek do… whatever they do. Have we ever left probes, seen what happens after our defeat? I can’t remember, staring up into the dark overhead. It could be a garden without us, it could be a jungle, with titans crashing through it, and verdant life. Fuck. Even if it’s not, life would go on, at the very least in the form of Vec.  
We aren’t fighting the end of the world. We are fighting the end of our world. Worlds.  
I wonder if there is an answer in mathematics. When we step from the breach, in the cold of space. Do we step into a new world? Does our arrival generate a fresh realm of casualties?  
We win so few times, all those lives we do save… for every one, there must be a mountain of dead, failures. Those we didn’t get to, couldn’t.  
Is their blood on our hands, because we refused to die?

**Author's Note:**

> Will likely be continued


End file.
